Motorola Xoom 2 seen early

(Update:some specs) A sequel to the Motorola Xoom might prove underwhelming after leaks of the first photos. Looking somewhat like the original, Droid-Life's sighting would have cut-off corners and a redesigned "HD" camera layout. The design, codenamed MZ617, won't have made any progress on weight and would be as heavy as the original and by extension the 1.5 year old original iPad.

A SIM slot is visible that would point to ready-made LTE or at least HSPA for non-Verizon carriers. No SD card slot appears to be present and, by extension, implies that Motorola give up on waiting for Google to get full SD card support. Many other details are waiting, although it might include a quad-core NVIDIA Kal-El processor.

The release is still too early, and Motorola might not ship the Xoom sequel until sometime early into 2012. If so, it would ship with Ice Cream Sandwich. This year, it unveiled the first Xoom at CES in January and shipped late in February.

Update: freshly leaked specs point it to mostly being a modest specification with the exception of dimensions. It should still have a dual-core processor, a 1.2GHz chip that might be either the upgraded Tegra 2 or a TI OMAP chip, as well as faster RAM that still tops out a 1GB. The changes would be enough to bump video recording up to 1080p while extending battery life an extra hour to 11, This is my next said. At 9mm thick, however, it would be just slightly thicker than the iPad 2 and much thinner than the original Xoom.

The slate will reportedly both get Netflix streaming in HD as well as the first official support for Flash Player 11, although what advantage that has over 10.3 isn't clear. Motorola would reportedly shadow the Sony Tablet S with an infrared blaster to control home theater hardware as well as matching home automation apps. Wi-Fi syncing could fill out the features.

By Electronista Staff